California Permanent Disability - Part 3 by Koszdin Kenton

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California Permanent Disability - Part 3
by Koszdin Kenton

The AMA Guides are inconsistent between chapters. A worker who has to take medications and has to visit a doctor for hypertension but can still perform his or her job gets a higher rating than a worker with a post surgical back with leg pain who is no longer able to do physical work and looses his or her career as a result of the injury. An assembly worker with carpal tunnel who has an operation but can't return to repetitive work might get 5% to 10%, but a worker with very minimal psychiatric issues can get a rating of 25%. In short, the orthopedic injuries that lower income workers suffer from and are by far the most dominant type of injury are rated very low and the few internal and psyche problems that upper class workers get rate higher. The Guides have subjectivity and there are still disagreements between doctors regarding the ratings. Also, the rating depends on how well the doctor understands the AMA Guides and how willing the doctor is to give the injured worker the full impairment rating that accurately reflects the injured workers impairment as defined by the AMA Guides.
To add insult to injury, the Administrative Director of the Department of Industrial Relations did not use any empherical data in determining the adjustment factors for the new permanent disability system as required by law. At this point, the defense attorney hacks and insurance company lackeys will say that I am wrong and that the Director used the 2004 Rand Report. This argument has no merit. First, the Rand Report proposed adjustments to the old system permanent disability rating schedule to adjust between parts of the body. Rand felt that knee injuries were being paid too much and psychiatric injuries were being paid too little. Rand proposed adjustments to make the schedule more equitable between body parts.
The modifications that Rand used had nothing to do with the AMA Guides percentages. The AMA Guides do not even address diminished future earnings capacity. The Rand 2004 Rand study has nothing to do with coming up with modifying factors to make the AMA percentages reflect diminished future earnings capacity. There is no data to support the current modifying factors other than the

Author's Biography:

Author Bio

Kenton Koszdin is a Workers' Compensation Attorney specializing in Workers Compensation Insurance Los Angeles, Workers Compensation Claims Los Angeles, Workers Compensation Law Los Angeles.